1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to vehicle control devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a vehicle control device described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2013-90424 (JP 2013-90424 A) is known as an example of vehicle drive devices that are mounted on vehicles and convert direct current (DC) power supplied from a secondary battery to alternating current (AC) power to control a rotation operation of a rotating electrical machine such as a motor. This vehicle control device includes smoothing capacitors for smoothing electric power in order to stably output AC power.
In such a vehicle control device, the smoothing capacitors need be quickly discharged if an abnormality occurs, safety such as to protect an occupant from electric shock if an abnormality occurs such as a case of a collision accident of the vehicle.
In the vehicle control device described in JP 2013-90424 A, a discharging module having a discharging resistor connected thereto is separately provided, so that the smoothing capacitor can be discharged by connecting the smoothing capacitors to the discharging module in a collision accident etc. of the vehicle. In this vehicle control device, however, the discharging module is separately provided in addition to the existing vehicle control device. Accordingly, an increase in size of the vehicle control device is unavoidable.